United Nations Food for Oil Scandal

[Coda]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,136267,00.html

I know most stay away from Fox News. This is a balanced article that has some US Companies hands in the cookie jar as well as the usual suspects. Plenty of supporting documentation too.

[Rob C]

Surely there's some mistake here--only French companies could possibly be involved!

[patricia]

I think that I would file the information about international companies benefitting from the Oil For Food scandal in the same catagory as Halliburton continuing to do business with Iran, while Dick Cheney was still with the company.
Business is business. Profit is profit. Politics are politics. The rationale seems to be that they are two different things
Of course Cheney didn't do business directly with Iran. He used a Canadian company as his intermediary, whose owner was jailed for defying the embargo, while Cheney escaped prosecution. OOPS.

[Ron Thorne]

Originally Posted by Coda

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,136267,00.html

I know most stay away from Fox News. This is a balanced article that has some US Companies hands in the cookie jar as well as the usual suspects. Plenty of supporting documentation too.

A "balanced article"?


Perhaps a slightly different take on Fox News and this article is in order.

• It's been my observation that most intelligent people purposefully avoid Fox News.

• There's rarely (if ever) "balance" when it comes to organizations such as Fox News.

• Supporting documentation supports what the "messenger" wants to have supported.

[Coda]

I forgot about this thread. I missed a few developments since my last postings. It seems that the amount of payola was drastically underestimated. The UN continues to withhold info that would implicate many of the same people who voted against the use of force.

Now we have evidence that shows that this money went to suicide bombers families. See http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,138759,00.html for details.

[Gary Sisco]

Not to mention many of them who most forcefully pushed to use force.

According to The Economist, there's a present-time oil-for-money scandal going on in Iraq right now. As of a month or so ago, anyway, they hadn't even put meters on the oil terminals yet.

Hasn't stopped anyone from selling it. Just from knowing how much was sold and therefore how much money was pocketed.

But of course we won't talk about things that are under our control. Only that which isn't.

[Monte Smith]

Senator Coleman of Minnesota is doing good work on this issue. He was on C-Span over the weekend, C-Span being one of the very few media outlets who are interested in covering this story. The estimate of the amount of money that Saddam Hussein got out of this corruption has been doubled from the reluctant UN admissions, we're talking in the neighborhood of $22 billion. Fellow could have a pretty good time in Vegas with all of that. You have French ministers implicated, you have Kofi Annan's son implicated, you have the office of the Russian President and the Communist Party of Ukraine. As international scandals go, this one is noteworthy. Look, if the US went to war under faulty intelligence to pre-empt the threat from a brute and a tyrant, then the UN appears to have had a sinister motive to defend the status quo of the Saddam regime.

[Gary Sisco]

If, if, if. And if the ocean boiled, there'd be lots of cooked fish.

[Gary Sisco]

Thing is, they didn't go to war under bogus intelligence. All of the intelligence they needed to the contrary was widely available in the public realm, never mind from their own intelligence agencies. Refusing to accept intelligence as valid because it doesn't fit the party line isn't the same thing as not having received it.

That's what McNamara would have us believe.

Even though it was he who commissioned the Pentagon Papers to begin with -- all of which confirmed intelligence he didn't want confirmed, and therefore he ignored it.

Bush's newly annointed boss at the CIA has, according to the papers, made it clear that his orders are to "support the admin and its policies," thereby further confusing the problem. That's exactly what the CIA should not, ever, do. It's job is to gather and analyze intelligence and to present it to the gubmint. That's all. It's job isn't to support any admin or any policy. And if that's to be its job, then we all paid out one whole hell of a lot of money for bogus intelligence gathering about intelligence gathering, over the past few years -- for nothing.

Which is, of course, exactly what we did.

[Monte Smith]

I think intelligence was also available in the halls of the UN that the organization was a day spa and bar for corrupt elites interested in no one's good but their own. But this thread isn't about the oil for food scandal. Oh wait, yes it is. We now return you to our discussion of Bush and Fox News.

[Gary Sisco]

And who is getting the money for the Iraqi oil being sold now? And who can tell? And who can say how much?

Better to talk about the past, and even then, to ignore at all costs the American corporate involvement in the same scandal.

Shit's so predictable, an enemy of the US has no need for intelligence agencies.

[Gary Sisco]

Monte -- The only question is who in their right minds ever expected anything else? Money talks and bullshit walks. Isn't that your party's slogan?

[Monte Smith]

Originally Posted by Gary Sisco

And who is getting the money for the Iraqi oil being sold now?

It isn't the UN earning blood money for the do-gooderism of keeping Saddam Hussein in power. That's a change.

[Gary Sisco]

Yeah, but who is getting it? You and your kind always answer questions by changing or ignoring the subject. American corporations made huge piles of money dealing with Hussein. And they're, er, well, one of them anyway, is making a huge pile again, selling unmetered oil.

The only relevant question is Who has the money?

And it was your man's father who decided to keep Hussein in power, let us remember, and also your man's father's crew in the Reagan admin, especially old Rummy, who did a lot of hanging with SadamSatan, as I recall. I mean, back when your party was pumping him up with power, money, and weapons, including missiles and missile technology.

Oh, I forgot, we're not supposed to remember these things....

[Coda]

I think you raise a fair question Gary. Is there any public source that keeps tabs on who receives the money and how it is spent?

I'm not making an assumption that the US is or is not gaining from this, but you sure are implying that they are. Are you puffing or is there some evidence?

[Coda]

Also Gary, why are you making this into a republican thing? From what I've read, most of the food for oil payola occured under Clinton reign. And before you jump down my post, I don't blame Clinton for this oil for food scandal, he couldn't have known.

[Monte Smith]

Let's see, you've said at once that we shouldn't talk about the past and we have to. Come on, Gary.

You often accuse me of having the mental make up of a good Stalinist. You are neither a Stalinist nor a defender and partisan of the UN. I think if you were in a different mood, you'd have no argument with the fact that the UN is dysfunctionally corrupt nor would you blame this particular corruption on the universal corruption of humanity or on the coincident corruption of the American government. You might even let the UN's disgrace stand alone to be beheld as it should.

[Dr Dave]

Gary's just reciting history. Recent history. I would like to take this opportunity, in light of William Safire's imminent retirement, to suggest that Monte and coda take over his column.

[Monte Smith]

Originally Posted by Dr Dave

Recent history.

Indeed. Here is more:

Oil funds paid for suicide bombers
By Desmond Butler
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
11/17/04

NEW YORK -- Saddam Hussein diverted money from the U.N. oil-for-food program to pay millions of dollars to families of Palestinian suicide bombers who carried out attacks on Israel, say congressional investigators who uncovered evidence of the money trail.

The former Iraqi president tapped secret bank accounts in Jordan -- where he collected bribes from foreign companies and individuals doing illicit business under the humanitarian program -- to reward the families up to $25,000 each, investigators told The Associated Press.

Documents prepared for a hearing today by the House International Relations Committee outline the new findings.

Today's hearing, however, will focus on a French bank that handled most of the money for the program. An audit by a U.S. regulatory agency of a small sample of transactions out of the $60 billion U.N. escrow account managed by BNP-Paribas has raised serious questions concerning the bank's compliance with American money-laundering laws, investigators said.

"There are indications that the bank may have been noncompliant in administering the oil-for-food program," committee chairman Henry Hyde, R-Ill., said. "If true, these possible banking lapses may have facilitated Saddam Hussein's manipulation and corruption of the program."

While acknowledging that U.S. regulators have raised routine issues with BNP on compliance with banking laws, a lawyer for BNP said Hyde's statement was unfair.

"No departure from any standard caused or contributed in any way to the abuse at the oil-for-food program," the bank's lead counsel, Robert S. Bennett, said. "There are simply no connections."

The humanitarian program let Iraq trade oil for food, medicine and other items. But investigators say Saddam made more than $21.3 billion in illegal revenue under the program.

Copyright 2004 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

[Coda]

Looks like this is becoming a bi-partisan issue.

"We all knew that Saddam was doing everything in his power to evade sanctions," the panel's top Democrat, Rep. Tom Lantos of California, said in prepared remarks. "But it is truly infuriating to discover the depth of the contempt and greed displayed by the governments of nations such as France, Russia and Syria who evidently jumped at the chance to participate in Saddam's crimes against the international community."

[Coda]

This really is well worth the read.

http://www.aina.org/news/20041117112056.htm

[Chris D]

Why wouldn't it be bi-partisan?

[Coda]

I know most won't read that posted article.

Chris - to answer your question (a good one by the way) it's because up until now the democratic party was trying to elect Kerry as president. They didn't want to bring up negative issues about the UN as it would appear to support Bush invading Iraq. Now that it's behind us, and now that this scandal is widening you'll see more democratic participation.

The wind has shifted and so has the democratics rhetoric.

[Darryl G. Thomas]

Does it matter? Saddam's gone, now the good guys will get the money.

[Dr Dave]

Of course it matters, especially if we can bash a French bank. Greedy, greedy French! Nasty French! Corrupt French!

I guess I'm just dull, I can't imagine Saddam Hussein financing suicide bombers. What advantage would that give him? Why in hell would a Baathist support Hamas?

[Darryl G. Thomas]

Why? Because the Baathists and Hamas hate freedom.

[Monte Smith]

Originally Posted by Dr Dave

What advantage would that give him? Why in hell would a Baathist support Hamas?

Why would Saddam fire missiles into Israel during the first Gulf War?

[Darryl G. Thomas]

Because he hates freedom?

[Monte Smith]

Originally Posted by Darryl G. Thomas

Because he hates freedom?

Bingo! I mean, wait.

Originally Posted by Chris D

Why wouldn't it be bi-partisan?

Because the U.N./liberla lovefest would cause the left to deny, deny, deny?